The Art of the Unreal

I love art when it entertains me. I love it when it enlightens me. I love it when it opens my eyes and mind to something I may not have seen or considered before. Similarly, I love good science — and for all the same reasons. Entertainment, enlightenment, showing me something new, whether it be an absurdly distant galaxy or a new subatomic particle (yes, even that can be entertaining if you have the right frame of mind).

I’m not so happy when either one tries to knowingly manipulate me to decide something that I’m perfectly capable of determining on my own. It’s far worse when the two, art and science, get together to try to achieve the same end.

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That’s why I’m going to discuss political advertisements. Not politics. Actual politics have very little to do with art or science. The adverts, though ….

Consider the use of light and color. In positive ads (what few there are anymore) a candidate is shown in clear light, usually bright daylight. Their makeup (an art form in and of itself) is consistent and strives to make them look younger. The camera always shows them with good posture, usually smiling and waving, often interacting with ‘regular’ folks. Never with industrialists or generals; always with workers and foot soldiers. We know they all talk with industrialists and generals, but the science of visual manipulation indicates that “our” candidate only interacts with citizens like ourselves. What we see in ads is very different from what we see on the news and at political rallies. When words are shown, the colors employed are bright and cheerful. Blues and greens, if not variations on white. The font is always soft, never jagged.

In contrast, negative ads seem to take their inspiration from the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence in Disney’s Fantasia. Everything around a candidate or about a candidate is dark, often to the point of brutalizing black and white. The key word here is ‘sharp’ — sharp lighting, sharp words, abrupt editing. The intent is to not to persuade but to hammer the viewer emotionally. The language used is always threatening, never calm or logical. I think of these ads as mini horror movies. Watching them, the last thing the creators want is for you to think or to react logically or rationally to what is being presented. They want to scare you.

Take any well-made negative political ad. You don’t think about the candidate. If the ad is effective, and all too often it is, the visuals, sounds and graphics unsettle you. This is where science comes in. Science has shown us what visual and aural triggers to pull to induce unease. It doesn’t matter what a candidate’s program is if an opponent’s advert can frighten you. The idea is to get you to vote to reduce fear, even if that fear is nothing more than a manipulation of actual facts.

Many times, negative ads scarcely bother to mention the candidate they are attacking. It’s enough for the ad to connect the candidate in your mind to whatever undesirable situation the creators chose to use. Such ads rarely last long. They strike violently and fast, before the viewer has a chance to ponder what they have just seen. Not for no reason are such ads part of an advertising ‘blitz.’ Their creators don’t want you think: they want you to jump.

Murders by illegal immigrants up across the country? Lots of mug shots of unpleasant-looking types? Quick cuts deliberately don’t give you time to study any of them. Are they ctual mug shots of actual murderers? Are they for sure illegal immigrants? What about those highly terse, angry reports of horrific killings? By now you’ve been hit so hard with intimations of violence that you’ve forgotten the actual claim of the ad, which is that murders are up. Everything happens so fast that the mind connects illegal immigrants with actual convicted murderers. Except, maybe some of the immigrants shown aren’t illegals, and if they are, maybe they have nothing to do with any murders, and perhaps that initial statistic isn’t really correct, for all manner of reasons.

A different example: one candidate promises to work for you, to lower the cost of living, and to solve ongoing foreign wars. Lots of pretty pictures and endless shaking of hands. But there are never any specifics. Work for you how? Lower the cost of living how? Settle foreign wars (that don’t actually involve us) how? It’s like fairy dust, sparkling through the light of every bright and sunny day and devoid of detail. Smiles and handshakes — who wouldn’t like the person being portrayed? Their teeth are perfect, their hair is always in place, they never stumble or frown or, heaven forbid, sneeze, cough, or otherwise do anything that might mark them as human.

We’re being manipulated by science and visual art. We know it’s happening, but we’re still human, still subject to the malign application of both, and still responsive to what we see and hear.

I’m waiting for someone to compile a list of frequently shown political commercials as rated for effectiveness by the latest iteration of advanced AI. I wonder who the machines would pick?

Maybe someday we’ll find out.